Imprisoned Uyghur Intellectual Yalkun Rozi Wins 2026 Graciela Fernández Meijide Award

Yalqun Rozi PR Mar 2026

For immediate release
March 2, 2026, 7 p.m. EST
Contact: Omer Kanat, +1 (202) 790-1795

The Uyghur Human Rights Project welcomes the decision by the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) to honor Uyghur scholar Yalkun Rozi with the 2026 Graciela Fernandez Meijide Award. Mr. Rozi will be recognized alongside other 2026 honorees, Anacleto Micha Ndong, Kim Jung-Wook, Choi Chun-Gil, and Kim Kook-Kie Win, political prisoners from Equatorial Guinea and North Korea, in a ceremony this August.

“We welcome CADAL’s decision to honor Yalkun Rozi, a scholar devoted to protecting and advancing Uyghur language and education,” said UHRP Executive Director, Omer Kanat. “This recognition highlights both his important contributions and the injustice of his continued imprisonment.” 

Mr. Kanat added, “Yalkun Rozi’s case reflects the broader targeting of Uyghur intellectuals. We call on the Chinese government to immediately release him and all wrongfully detained Uyghur scholars, and urge the global academic community to stand up for their imprisoned colleagues.”

Yalkun Rozi, a respected literary critic, writer, and former editor at Xinjiang Education Press, dedicated his career to promoting Uyghur language, culture, and identity within the education system. He was detained by state authorities in Ürümchi in October 2016 and sentenced in January 2018 to 15 years in prison for alleged “inciting subversion of state power.”

Rozi served on the editorial board of the Uyghur Textbook Department of the Xinjiang Education Ministry and helped produce more than 90 Uyghur-language textbooks and extracurricular materials between 2001 and 2011.

UHRP research has revealed the widespread persecution of Uyghur intellectuals. A 2021 report by Abdullah Qazanchi and Abduweli Ayup, The Disappearance of Uyghur Intellectual and Cultural Elites: A New Form of Eliticide, documented at least 312 Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim intellectual and cultural elites being held in some form of detention, describing the campaign as a deliberate means to exterminate Uyghur identity.

UHRP calls on the Chinese government to release Yalkun Rozi, all detained Uyghur intellectuals, and all Uyghurs arbitrarily imprisoned. UHRP also urges academic institutions worldwide to stand in solidarity with their imprisoned Uyghur colleagues.